The Man Who Ran
by Blue-eyesThropp
Summary: Rumplestiltskin is the man who ran, forever unable to run. Rumple's experiences shortly after he breaks his leg in the Ogre wars.


**Author's Note:**  
><strong>Hello dearies,<strong>  
><strong>so, this is my first (official) Once Upon a Time fanfiction, borne out of frustration at having to wait till March (!) for another episode, just when it got so exciting and Rumple-y. For a long time now, I've really wanted Rumple to lose his powers andor Belle again, because broken Rumple is far more fascinating to me than happy Rumple. The end of season 4 confirmed what I had long since suspected: that there was a connection between Rumple's metaphorical running away from situations and his physical ability to run. Rumple running away while possessing the physical ability to run often leads to it being taken away from him, and I liked the resulting double meaning in the phrase "The Man Who Ran". I kind of wanted to put my thoughts into words, and that's how this fanfiction was written.**  
><strong>Enjoy (hopefully) and if you can spare a minute to drop me a review, you will make me a very happy person<strong>  
><strong>Lots of love,<strong>  
><strong>Blue-eyes<strong>

**Summary:**  
><strong>Rumplestiltskin is the man who ran, forever unable to run. Rumple's experiences shortly after he breaks his leg in the Ogre wars.<strong>

**Disclaimer:**  
><strong>All rights go to the creators of Once Upon a Time. For entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement intended. No profit was made from this story (if only…)<strong>

The Man Who Ran

The ground was wet beneath him as he lay, clutching at his knee, teeth gritted in agony. He clawed at the fallen, rotting leaves with the nails of his free hand; his head felt on the verge of splitting in two, the sounds of men-soldiers- shouting and fighting grew distant. The pain in his leg was the worst; shattered bones piercing his skin, hot blood drenching his trouser leg. He could not move, could barely breathe for pain.

He did not hear the heavy boots approaching, and even as they stood before him, the voices of the owners conversing with one another, it seemed but a trick of his hazy mind. Only when two strong pairs of hands dragged him up from under his arms did he fully realize that he had, indeed, been found. He tried to suppress a cry as he was lifted carelessly onto both of his feet and simply hung between the two men, who he could not recognize by their voices alone, limp, his head swaying back and forth, long hair in his eyes.

"Show me the coward's face," a third soldier, who was standing opposite the two others and was evidently in charge, barked.

He felt the man supporting him on his right side grab him by his hair, pulling his face upwards and dirt being roughly brushed off his cheeks, if for no other reason than to make him more recognisable. The man in charge, who, he now learned, was none other than the General himself, scoffed spitefully in his rough, chesty voice.

"Rumplestiltskin… trying to run?" he sneered, looking disdainfully at the damage Rumple had done to his own leg, before commanding the two men, " I say, get him into a tent."

Rumple's head dropped back down as his hair was unexpectedly released. He did not even attempt to regain his dignity or his composure, he was too weary from the pain and the time spent on the cold, hard ground in the dirt of the camp and his own blood. He felt his feet trail behind him as the soldiers pulled him towards one of the tents with his arms around their necks, each inch seemingly more painful than the one before, sending a searing shot up his leg, through his hip and as far as his back. The last thing he remembered was the air being knocked right out of his body as he collided roughly with the hard, makeshift bed inside the yurt, before he lost consciousness completely.

For days they left Rumplestiltskin lying there, wounded and feverish, with nothing but his own flask of water and the occasional bit of leftover bread to sustain him. An unwitting servant boy came to dress his leg, but the General-this much Rumple had managed to comprehend through his daze- ordered him not to apply a splint nor to ease his in discomfort or assist his leg in healing. Cowards, he had said, did not deserve to receive attention, especially for self inflicted wounds. He would stay there, was the order, as long as it took for the fever to pass, or else until the wounded were to be taken home again so as to _"teach him a lesson about evading duty! Let him rot in his own filth, it is befitting of craven!"_

Several times, the fever reached an unbearable climax, and Rumple's body shut down completely. Before he slid into darkness, he would hope and beg to wake up again once the worst was over. However, when the fever subsided, he almost immediately found himself longing for its return, for it was impossible to sleep through the pain. On these days, he often overheard scraps of conversation outside the tent, rumours about himself, names being made up and repeated until they were so ingrained in the minds of the soldiers that they had, Rumple feared, forgotten his true name. Honourless, deserting coward, they called him. Yellow. Weak. He longed to rise from his bed-bound position, to tell them to their stupidly smiling faces that he had a name, that it was Rumplestiltskin, how dare they presume to invent new, degrading ones for him? According to his father's philosophy, a name was akin to a definition, and having a name made something real. And he would be damned if he let those horrid sobriquets become his definition, become his reality. But, naturally, his current position prohibited hims from accomplishing any such feat, so he simply lay in the yurt, trying to ignore the harsh words of the other soldiers.

To create a barricade in his mind and ears for the hateful words of his former fellows, Rumple tried to repeat to himself over and over the true cause for his actions: the noble, selfless desire to allow his son to grow up knowing him as his father- as the man who raised him rather than a distant memory of a war hero whose seed had created him. Rumple himself had not had the fortune to be raised by his true parents, and he clung to the belief that what he had done, saving his son from the fate he himself had suffered, was the morally superior thing to do. Damn honour, damn dignity! He pictured his little boy, pink as anything, smiling and laughing, with his mother's curls and Rumple's own chocolate eyes, gay and playful as could be. And happy. Rumple knew, when he saw these images in his mind's eye, that he would have paid any price to see them realized.

There were days, however, when he questioned the seer's believability. Was he really going to be a father? Or was he simply desperate to find a way to leave the battlefield that was so different from how he had imagined it upon being called to the front. Was he truly the altruistic hero of his own story, or was he, as a matter of fact, nothing but a mere coward? Thoughts of home, of his father, of Milah, of the other soldiers and internal debates over dignity, honour and bravery taunted Rumplestiltskin for five days-or so he counted- until he was woken from his first peaceful night's sleep on the morrow of the sixth by the sound of a large, solid branch being thrown towards his bed. His first company in days was a healer from out of town, who had come to escort the wounded soldiers home. Rumple glanced up at the bearded man, shattered and mistrusting. The healer nodded towards the staff on the floor and, although he said nothing to the deserter, the message was clear: _there was walking to be done._

Rumple let his injured leg slowly slide of the bed, wincing and trying desperately not to cry out with every movement. He rolled off the bed, onto his hands and good knee, revealing his thin, undernourished form in all its glory, or lack thereof, to the healer, careful to keep his right foot well above the ground- this muscular contraction itself was profoundly painful to him itself, but he managed to reach the floor and stretch his hand out just enough to grab the staff. It was only once he had deserted the bed that the sour stench he had been lying in for the past days reached Rumplestiltskin's nose, and he dared not even speculate as to what individual components the smell was compiled of.

The healer watched with pitying eyes, his expression torn, betraying a deep, inner dilemma. From his floor bound position, Rumple glanced at him one more time, ashamed of his own inability to stand like a good soldier and having instead to resort to crawling like a worm or a mere babe. The healer closed his eyes for a second at Rumple's pathetic look; his jaw tightened, and he shook his head with a deep sigh. Then, quickly and resolutely, he picked up his sack that lay next to him and spoke to Rumple for the first time, "Damn orders!" he whispered to the spinster, unpacking to sticks and a grimy rectangular strip of linen from the satchel. He knelt down before Rumple and began manipulating his shattered calf bone. Rumple opened his mouth to scream, but the healer's hand blocked the sound before it could form.

"Here," he hissed, giving Rumple a square of fabric, scrunched into a ball, "Here, bite on this. You'll get us both killed if you make a sound. Pull yourself together!"

With a furtive glance over his shoulder, the healer continued his work and Rumple clamped the stale tasting fabric between his jaws. He placed the two sticks on either side of Rumple's leg and wrapped the cloth tightly around it, creating an, albeit very makeshift and uncomfortable, splint. He took the staff out of Rumple's hand and held it perpendicularly and sturdily on the ground, so that his patient could inch his way up on it.

"We can bathe you on once we're well away from this place," the healer said, in a voice indicating that his orders had been quite to the contrary.

A small gathering of people had convened before the yurts to see off their wounded companions. They cheered and sung as the wounded hobbled or were carried on portable beds made of sheep's hides strung between two short branches. When Rumplestiltskin exited his tent, however, leaning heavily on his staff, the crowd fell silent. Someone jeered, a few others hissed, but Rumple kept his face trained towards the floor. Even as he felt a hard object hit his temple, though he swayed a little with the impact, he did not raise his glance. He would rather watch his twisted foot than have to look into the faces of the disapproving crowd. This, he realized, did nothing by way of eradicating the idea that he was, indeed, a deserter, and as yellow bellied as they came, but Rumple hardly cared anymore. Milah and his son would understand, and anyone else could- and, regardless of anything Rumple might have done to convince them to do otherwise, _would_ - believe what they liked.

It was as he was reaching the rickety old cart filled with moaning men that was to take back home to his wife and, hopefully, his wee boy, that Rumplestiltskin first heard one of the men shout the name that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Look, it's Hobblefoot," he sneered to the man next to him, and then, louder and pointedly in the direction of the cart, "The man who ran. If he even is a man... Show us your balls, coward, if you got any!"

Rumplestiltskin stopped in his tracks to look the guffawing man in the eye for just a second, yet it was enough to burn the round, bearded face of the young soldier into the back of his memory for years to come. Although he did not know it for certain, Rumple felt that he would meet that face again someday.

The healer placed a hand on Rumple's arm, urging him onwards. As he slowly approached the cart, Rumple had to laugh bitterly to himself. Since he had been a boy, he had tried to run from everything. He had run to Neverland with his father, fled the land of eternal childhood when his first escape plan had backfired with his father's transformation into a hateful, blonde youth; he had tried to run from the stigma surrounding his family, thanks to the deeds of his old man, by joining the Ogre Wars and now, finally, was _running_, so to speak, from the front to be with his family. But, one thing Rumple knew for certain as he slowly, painfully ascended the stairs into the back of the cart was that, though perhaps he truly was the man who ran, he would not be running anywhere ever again.


End file.
